


Ghouls of a Week Ago Past

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim disappears after St. Barts, and when he shows back up, it's a week later and Sebastian has spent that time sitting on the couch, drinking and answering texts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghouls of a Week Ago Past

**Author's Note:**

> this is totally a fix-it fic, with angsty sex and breakfast. 
> 
> Written after s2, before s3 (and originally posted to livejournal in 2012-- I'm just only now moving everything over to here)

When Jim shows back up, it's a been a week and Sebastian has spent almost all of that time sitting on the couch, drinking himself calmly into oblivion and answering texts.

And then Jim knocks at the door. He's got fading green-yellow ugly bruises around his mouth, a mad, exhausted look in his eyes, and he's sickly pale like a ghost. Sebastian opens the door, punches Jim in the face, and then kisses him, and then they fuck desperately on the floor and then on the couch, and then on the kitchen table because Jim is hungry, and then they fuck in their lush bed because Jim is tired, and now covered in rug burns.

"My mouth hurts," he whispers against Sebastian's collar bone as they lay together, warm and safe. "My head hurts."

Even though he knows the answer, Sebastian asks, "Why?"

"Because I shot myself in the face, darling."

Sebastian says nothing. Jim tries to turn off the light, but Sebastian stops him. He wants to be able to see Jim. He never wants to not see him again.

In the morning, Jim is gone and for a minute Sebastian panics, thinking it was a dream-- a very vivid dream where Jim was soft and pliable under his hands, where when they kissed Jim hissed in pain, where their teeth clacked and Jim's manicured nails dug into Sebastian's tiger scars and they both had blood in their mouths and Sebastian held him close and cried for the third time in his adult life once Jim was asleep.

But then there's noise from the kitchen, of plates clanking together and onto the table, and Sebastian's heart shifts to a different part of his chest. Still apprehensive, still afraid that he's been made the brunt of some cruel universal trick, he sneaks out to the kitchen. He's almost nervous to turn the corner; it's embarrassing. But then... there's Jim, sitting at the table with his hair damp and brushed back off his forehead, with toast and two cups of tea. He's laid out sugar and cream and butter and jam-- anything and everything that Sebastian could ever want and things he didn't think he had in the fridge.

"It smelled like sex in here," Jim says. "I spent all morning cleaning."

It all feels like a dream, still-- that Jim is here, alive, that he's over-steeped the tea and burnt the toast just like he always did. _It's too good to be true_ , Sebastian thinks as he sits down across from his bruised, battered, but very not dead boss-lover-boyfriend.

Looking at Jim now, watching him sit there sipping creamy tea and wearing one of Sebastian's sweatshirts, things are starting to feel a little more real.

"I swear I saw you die," Sebastian says flatly, adding sugar to his tea and-- with great focus-- scraping butter and deep red raspberry jam onto his toast. "You were dead."

"Yes," Jim says, taking Sebastian's chin in his hands and turning him. Jim's eyes are blacker than ever, as if with his resurrection all the chocolate warmth was drained out of him, replaced with black swamp muck. For a moment Jim is a ghoul, a frightful inhuman creature crawled out of the grave. Sebastian Moran, a man who is rarely afraid, rarely unhappy, rarely sick, rarely anything but tough and obedient and satisfied, feels ill. He wants to look away from Jim's ghostly face and his bruises. He wants to vomit and then get back into bed and forget all about this horrible wonderful dream.

Jim flashes his teeth, though it's not a smile, and continues; "I was dead. And in every way that matters, I still am. I'm dead, Seb." Sebastian closes his eyes. "But I came back to you, Sebastian. I wouldn't leave you." Blindly, Sebastian reaches out to touch Jim's warm, soft hand and he can feel a pulse beating through the thin skin of his wrist and the pad of his thumb.

"But you're not," Sebastian hisses. "You're alive." Fingers touch Sebastian's cheek, and he leans into the touch.

"I'm dead," Jim says. Sebastian holds Jim's hand, squeezing tightly. His stomach is churning. "I'm dead." He says it over and over. "I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. I shot myself in the head and I'm dead."

Some part of Sebastian is convinced that if he opens his eyes, Jim will be gone. That all of this-- the tea in front of him, the warm hands on his face-- will evaporate the moment he opens his eyes and all he will see is the cold interior of his empty, lonely kitchen.

"I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead-- Stop, Sebastian, you're making my hands wet." It's then that Sebastian Moran opens his eyes and realizes that he's been crying. This counts as the fourth time he's cried as an adult-- _which is an important distinction to make_ , Sebastian thinks in the midst of chiding himself, _Childish tears don't count_. They are uncontrollable. As an adult, he had decided while in the army, there should never be tears. Tears were useless, a waste, and foolish, an indulgence.

Number four-- at breakfast with Jim. Number three-- in bed with Jim. Number Two-- when Jim was dead. Number One-- when his father finally died without changing his will, so Sebastian got the inheritance he hadn't been expecting and didn't deserve. That time he had cried for joy, laughing until his laughter turned into hard, wet sobs, and then to hysterical laughter again.

This feels the same. He could be laughing, but instead he's crying.

Jim has the decency to look uncomfortable. "Stop it, Seb," he says. "I don't like you like this."

Sebastian chokes out a laugh, which is half a sob too. "I didn't like you when you were dead."

"I'm still dead--"

"When you were gone then," Sebastian snaps, his whole body thrumming tightly. It hurts him physically to think about Jim being gone again. His muscles feel weak and overworked just from having this conversation. He hates it, but he can't control it.  "I didn't like it when you were gone." Sebastian takes a sharp breath in. The next words slip out of him without permission: "Please God, Jim, don't ever do that again."

Shifting his chair to sit next to Sebastian, Jim softens, his eyes warming to brown, his mouth curling into a slight smile. Smiling accentuates his bruised lips. His glittering eyes accentuate the bruise on his cheek from Sebastian's fist. His skin is still pale, but he looks more human than he did last night.  He looks alive again.

With perfect, smooth precision, Jim leans in to press his lips against Sebastian's trembling mouth. "I'm never going away again," he mumbles as Sebastian inhales weakly. Jim tastes like death and tea and butter; his lips are soft and comforting, his mouth is wet and warm and slick. "Anywhere I go, from here on out, you come with me. To hell and back."

"To hell and back," Sebastian agrees. He knows Jim will never admit that he didn't die on the rooftop of St. Barts, or explain how he pulled it off. He knows that for the rest of their lives together, Jim will say that he's dead. But he also knows that Jim means it when he says he'll never leave again. They will never be without each other, which is far more important than who's dead and who's not and how.

He pulls Jim onto his lap. They kiss, long and languid. Purring like a kitten, Jim kisses the side of Sebastian's nose. Sebastian kisses the bruise along Jim's cheekbone. Jim makes little sounds of pain.

Standing, carrying Jim who has wrapped around him like a koala, Sebastian makes a move back towards the bedroom, but they end up fucking against the fridge instead-- their mouths open, breathing the same air and mumbling and occasionally pretending to kiss.

"You're a fucking piece of shit," Sebastian groans against Jim's neck.

His eyes screwed shut, and with a whine of pleasure, Jim Moriarty replies; "I love you."

Which is bullshit, of course. But it's a nice thing to say.


End file.
